Peter Capaldi, who stars in The Thick of It, says he stays away from
politicians so that he can remain impartial as an actor.

Lord Leveson looks as if he may be about to have the tables turned on him. Peter Capaldi tells me a very similar judge will figure in the next series of The Thick of It.

The actor, who plays the demented spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, was reluctant to go into details, but, like his lordship, he appears determined to remain impartial.

“I turn down invitations to events where I know there will be politicians,” he says. “I find the closer you get to people, the harder it is to satirise them. I don’t want to be charmed by any of them.“

Armando Iannucci, the show’s writer, has also hinted that he will take a stab at coalition government. Happily for David Cameron, who seldom takes kindly to being the butt of jokes, Iannucci has refrained from featuring the prime minister of the day.

Nick Buckles and his security firm, G4S, were, predictably, given both barrels by The Guardian on Wednesday with the comrades accusing him of “epic incompetence” and “unrelenting cost-cutting”, among other things.

Strangely, somewhat less prominence was given to a story in the newspaper’s City pages about another company that, after managing to run up losses of £44.2 million last year alone, was about to make one in six of its own workforce redundant in a bid to save £7 million.

Its name? Guardian Media Group.

What a babe

Sam Waley-Cohen and his wife, Annabel, may soon be hearing the patter of tiny trotters.

Sam, who is credited with bringing Prince William and Kate Middleton back together after they split up, says the acquisition of a micro pig could be a trial run for parenthood.

“We’re thinking about a micro pig so, depending on how that goes, we’ll see,” he says at a party at the Ritz. The quiet season for jump racing could well prove helpful. “Now that I have time off, who knows?" he says.